Welcome to Trouble Free Pool

We would like to welcome you to TFP, the webs leading Pool related website. We invite you to please Register to create a new account. Doing this will give you full access to the forums, where you will be able to receive personalized advice concerning your pool. We hope to see you soon!

New Member - New Pool Build in DFW Area

A couple of quick observations before I get started:
-You all make me feel REALLY poor with such impressive pool builds. One guy practically built a luxury resort in his back yard. Due to limited space and a tight budget, I imagine our build is one of the smallest/cheapest on here.

-After reading all of these build threads, I feel extremely lucky that my build was mostly trouble-free and took only 31 days. It seems like some of you have been stuck in this process for months with no end in sight.

Anyhow, onto our modest project. As I mentioned, we had a tight budget so we ended up axing some features that we originally had on our wishlist (upgraded plaster, additional water features, stamped concrete, etc). The only upgrades we ended up doing were the raised spa and the variable speed pump. All other finishes were part of their standard package, but we're very happy with the final product.

I wasn't around during most of the construction (pesky job getting in the way), which was kind of frustrating but also a blessing in some ways. It meant that I didn't have to obsess over every minute detail, and when I got home from work there was always something new for me to take a look at. As I said, the build only took 31 days and there were workers on site nearly every day. I have no complaints at all about my PB, which appears to be pretty rare around here.

I will try to add more pictures later, but here are a few:
Day 1: Excavation. They did the dig, rebar, and plumbing all in one day

Gunite:

Tile and coping. This was completed in three days. I love the color variation in the flagstone, and I'm happy with the spillover we picked.

Deck frame. We decided to do an overlay of our existing patio so that we didn't have to take down the pergola. I build the pergola myself about 8 years ago.

Poured Deck. We chose "rough texture" and a tan color that goes pretty well with the flagstone.

Filled with water!

Picture my wife sent me while I was at work (to make me jealous) on the first day we could swim in it:

We're supposed to have pool school later this week, and we should be able to use the heater for the first time as well. I'm sure I'll have a ton of questions, as pool ownership is totally new to me. I bought the Taylor test kit (and have no idea how to use it). I could also use some landscaping recommendations. There is a 3' x 25' strip behind the pool, and a 2' x 15' strip to the right side of the pool.

Re: New Member - New Pool Build in DFW Area

A couple of quick observations before I get started:
-You all make me feel REALLY poor with such impressive pool builds. One guy practically built a luxury resort in his back yard. Due to limited space and a tight budget, I imagine our build is one of the smallest/cheapest on here.

-After reading all of these build threads, I feel extremely lucky that my build was mostly trouble-free and took only 31 days. It seems like some of you have been stuck in this process for months with no end in sight.

Anyhow, onto our modest project. As I mentioned, we had a tight budget so we ended up axing some features that we originally had on our wishlist (upgraded plaster, additional water features, stamped concrete, etc). The only upgrades we ended up doing were the raised spa and the variable speed pump. All other finishes were part of their standard package, but we're very happy with the final product.

I wasn't around during most of the construction (pesky job getting in the way), which was kind of frustrating but also a blessing in some ways. It meant that I didn't have to obsess over every minute detail, and when I got home from work there was always something new for me to take a look at. As I said, the build only took 31 days and there were workers on site nearly every day. I have no complaints at all about my PB, which appears to be pretty rare around here.

I will try to add more pictures later, but here are a few:
Day 1: Excavation. They did the dig, rebar, and plumbing all in one day

Gunite:

Tile and coping. This was completed in three days. I love the color variation in the flagstone, and I'm happy with the spillover we picked.

Deck frame. We decided to do an overlay of our existing patio so that we didn't have to take down the pergola. I build the pergola myself about 8 years ago.

Poured Deck. We chose "rough texture" and a tan color that goes pretty well with the flagstone.

Filled with water!

Picture my wife sent me while I was at work (to make me jealous) on the first day we could swim in it:

We're supposed to have pool school later this week, and we should be able to use the heater for the first time as well. I'm sure I'll have a ton of questions, as pool ownership is totally new to me. I bought the Taylor test kit (and have no idea how to use it). I could also use some landscaping recommendations. There is a 3' x 25' strip behind the pool, and a 2' x 15' strip to the right side of the pool.

Looks great! And just wait until the cold snap hits us tomorrow, you'll fall in love with your hot-tub very shortly! Congrats, it's beautiful!

Re: New Member - New Pool Build in DFW Area

That is really nice. I particularly like the water feature (spillway) from the spa. I am a new pool owner as well and despite how nice my pool is and how proud I am of it, I'm amazed at how much pool envy I get with each new build I see. Hmmmmmm...must be that grass always being greener thing or in this case; the pool being bluer.

Re: New Member - New Pool Build in DFW Area

Originally Posted by Brushpup

Looks great, and welcome to TFP. I bet people thought you were nuts squeezing a pool in there, but I think it's cool that you did.

I did get a few strange looks from the PBs when I first showed them my yard. It's definitely a small pool, but once you get in it it's really not bad at all. Perfectly fine for our family of four. We aren't super popular, so it's not like we'll be having giant pool parties. Had we decided to take down the pergola and rebuild it/build a new one, we could have made the pool a couple of feet wider. We just didn't want the extra cost or effort if I rebuilt it myself. Ultimately, I'm glad our patio is fairly large so I think we made the right choice.

It was 80 degrees yesterday, and I woke up to 40 degrees this morning. Gotta love that North Texas weather! Can't wait until we can fire up the heater!

Here are a few more pics...

Gunite in progress:

Equipment pad. The filter seems enormous for my tiny pool, but I guess bigger is better.

They set up soaker hoses around the pool on a timer so that I didn't have to manually water the gunite. They also did all the brushing after plaster, so I was very pleased with this company.

Re: New Member - New Pool Build in DFW Area

I'd put some heat tolerant, lower growing native plants in that strip. Salvia Greggi, Lantana,Rosemary. None of them shed much either. You could accent with annuals tucked in here and there.

Thanks for the suggestions. Our experience with rosemary is that it grows very quickly and takes over the whole space, so we may avoid that one. I like the looks of the salvia greggi and lantana, so I'll definitely need to check those out.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Twolabs

Great job and wow, it certainly seems like it was a professional PB. Even got you set up on the soaker hoses!

And that fence is incredible. I'll definitely keep that in mind when it comes time to replace our fence!

Thanks. I've been following your build, and I'm jealous. You have enough space to do whatever you want back there.

Re: New Member - New Pool Build in DFW Area

Your pic shows a lot of water spilling from the spa into the pool. Did you have to add extra pumping power to get that great effect, or does the normal filter loop naturally provide that much flow?

It is part of the normal circulation process. It is currently configured to pull water from the main drains on the bottom of the pool, and the return comes to both the pool and the single return in the bottom of the spa (which causes the spillover). With this configuration, I discovered that the pump needs to be running at about 2000 RPM to get much of a spillover effect. Anything lower than that, and it's a bit of a trickle. I'm sure there are a ton of different valve configurations that would yield varying results, so that's on my list of questions for pool school. This is all very new to me.

Re: New Member - New Pool Build in DFW Area

We are thinking about heating up the whole pool to use tomorrow (I'm the only one crazy/stupid enough to use it up to this point with the chilly water). Can any of you experienced folks give me a ballpark estimate for how long it will take to heat a 10K gallon pool (probably a bit less than 10K) with a 400K BTU heater? Any rough estimate of cost? I'm hoping not to get a $500 gas bill next month.